The present disclosure relates to thin film materials deposited, grown, or produced in any other manner on substrates or to bulk materials and the measurement and analysis of the bulk materials or thin film materials for residual stresses and their gradients using high resolution grazing incidence X-ray diffraction.
Stress may be defined as the ratio of force applied to a cross sectional area of a material. Stresses on a material may be either tensile or compressive. Materials undergo elastic and plastic deformations as force is applied. Plastic deformation is permanent non-recoverable deformation. Elastic deformation is recoverable and temporary, e.g., no permanent change is made to the material and the atoms return to the original position when the force is removed.
Residual stresses are defined as elastic stresses that remain in the material following processing. Excessive residual stresses present in bulk materials or in thin film materials could lead to failure of the materials during use. Residual elastic stresses in thin film material deposits and coatings may occur in many industries where thin film materials and coatings are used and produced such as aerospace, automotive, biomedical, ceramics, coatings, electronics, energy, metals, optics, thin film material deposition tool manufacturing, Semiconductor and Packaging, and other similar industries. X-ray diffraction techniques may be used to measure residual stresses in materials by measuring changes in the spacing between atomic planes in the materials, also known as dspacing or d-spacing.